By Tara Patel

IT’S SUMMER time and as hot as Hades. It’s so easy to reach out for one of the soft cold drinks of the market place - there’re any number of them pretending to be fresh fruit juices, but are hardly that. Then there’re the plethora of sherbet and powder concentrates to pour water in, chill and drink…there was time when lemonades were made with fresh lemons and sweetened with wholesome honey and jaggery. Now in the advertisements they show loving mothers squeezing out lemons…but at the end of the advertisement it’s a bottle of Minute Maid lemonade they show you! So much for mother’s love and brainwashing.

BY TEENA JAIN KAUSHAL AND SUNIL DHAWAN

INSURANCE, BY definition, is morbid. What if I die suddenly? What if I had to undergo expensive medical treatment? Insurers, who work with large samples, calculate the probability of such an event and, hence, the possibility of them having to pay out a sum of money to mitigate, to the extent possible, the effects of that disaster. Given that costs at private healthcare facilities, where you are most likely to land up, is high, and, doubling every four years ten months or so, the rest of your money life could easily go out of whack if you had to incur such expenses.

BY VISA RAVINDRAN
ARE YOUR daily two cups of coffee a panacea or poison? Is soya the new wonder potion or can it damage your system? The answer depends on which website or newspaper article you choose to believe. But how does one make such choices?

DENGUE (Pronounced den’gee) is a disease caused by any one of four closely related viruses (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3, or DEN-4). The viruses are transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito (Aedes aegypti). The Aedes aegypti mosquito is the vector for dengue/DHF (Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever). It is estimated that there are over 100 million cases of dengue worldwide each year.

RABIES IS a disease (caused by the rabies virus) primarily of animals, including both wild and domestic animals and human beings. Although people usually associate rabies with dogs, among domesticated animals, rabies today is more likely to be found in cats.

NOWADAYS, THE word “trans fats” is heard quite often when it comes to the dilemma of eating or not eating processed or junk food. But many of us don’t even know what trans fats are and why they are so bad for us to consume directly or indirectly. Or how they contribute towards our current epidemic of heart disease and type 2 diabetes and much else. What are trans fats? Trans fats were invented by food manufacturers when they wanted to turn vegetable oils into solid or semi-solid fats;

NEVER MIND the awards the Chief Minister of Goa is picking up! According to keynote speaker Javid Chaudhary, former secretary (Health), Government of India, speaking at the 35th Annual General Body Meeting of The Voluntary Health Association of India on September 11, 2009, it is not Kerala or Himachal Pradesh or Goa, but Tamil Nadu which has the best health system in India. But Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh are exceptions in the country.

A SWINE flu outbreak occurred in Mexico and the United States in April 2009 and spread rapidly around the world by human-to-human transmission. The new type A H1N1 influenza virus is unlike any that had been previously isolated, judging from the first data released in May.

OUT OF the sixteen patients who tested positive for H1N1 in Goa, twelve were cases imported from abroad, three were imported from other parts of India and one native acquired it from a foreign tourist visiting Goa. Four of these are from North Goa and twelve are from South Goa. The majority of the cases fall under the age group of 30-60 years. All these have been cured completely and the only person under treatment in Chicalim Cottage Hospital is a suspected case of H1N1 - a person who had travelled to Sharjah.

IF YOU’VE lost faith but are still looking for a bona fide Ayurveda centre, apart from those located in five and seven star hotels which are quite beyond the reach of ordinary citizens, you cannot do better than check out the brand new Ayurveda centre of Ayurcare, which opened for serious business on May 1, 2009, in Porvorim in Goa. Healthcare is serious business, be it mainstream Allopathy or any of the other alternate systems of medicine and healing which are fast making a come back in our times, because Allopathy can be quite disillusioning vis-à-vis today’s so called degenerative or lifestyle diseases.